A Stillness at Appomattox (138 page)

In
modern
terms,
the
Confederacy
had
organized
a
resistance
movement
in
territory
occupied
by
the
hated
Yankees; had
organized
it,
and
then
had
seen
it
get
badly
out
of hand.

The
Valley
was
full
of
men
who
were
Confederate
soldiers by
fits
and
starts—loosely
organized
and
loosely
controlled, most
of
them,
innocent
civilians
six
days
a
week
and
hell-roaring
raiders
the
seventh
day.
They
owned
horses,
weapons, and
sometimes
uniforms,
which
they
carefully
hid
when
they were
not
actually
using
them.
Called
together
at
intervals
by their
leaders,
they
would
swoop
down
on
outposts
and
picket lines,
knock
off
wagon
trains
or
supply
depots,
burn
culverts and
bridges
behind
the
Federal
front,
and
waylay
any
couriers, scouts,
or
other
detached
persons
they
could
find.
They
compelled
Union
commanders
to
make
heavy
detachments
to guard
supply
lines
and
depots,
thus
reducing
the
number
of soldiers
available
for
service
in
battle.
To
a
certain
extent they
unintentionally
compensated
for
this
by
reducing
straggling
in
the
Federal
ranks,
for
the
Northern
soldier
was firmly
convinced
that
guerillas
took
no
prisoners
and
that to
be
caught
by
them
was
to
get
a
slit
throat.

So
the
guerillas
gave
the
Federal
commanders
a
continuing headache—and,
in
the
long
run,
probably
did
the
Confederacy
much
more
harm
than
good.

The
quality
of
these
guerilla
bands
varied
greatl
y.
At
the top
was
John
S.
Mosby's:
courageous
soldiers
led
by
a
minor genius,
highly
effective
in
partisan
warfare.
Most
of
the groups,
however,
were
about
one
degree
better
than
plain outlaws,
living
for
loot
and
excitement,
doing
no
actual
fighting
if
they
could
help
it,
and
offering
a
secure
refuge
to any
number
of
Confederate
deserters
and
draft
evaders.
The Confederate
cavalry
leader,
General
Thomas
L.
Rosser,
called them
"a
nuisance
and
an
evil
to
the
service,"
declaring:

"Without
discipline,
order
or
organization,
they
roam broadcast
over
the
country,
a
band
of
thieves,
stealing,
pillaging,
plundering
and
doing
every
manner
of
mischief
and crime.
They
are
a
terror
to
the
citizens
and
an
injury
to
the cause.
They
never
fight;
can't
be
made
to
fight.
Their
leaders are
generally
brave,
but
few
of
the
men
are
good
soldiers."
¹⁶

Jeb
Stuart,
not
long
before
his
death,
endorsed
this
senti
ment,
saying
that
Mosby's
was
the
only
ranger
band
he
knew of
that
was
halfway
efficient
and
that
even
Mosby
usually operated
with
only
a
fourth
of
his
supposed
strength,
while Lee
wrote
to
the
Confederate
Secretary
of
War
strongly urging
that
all
such
groups
be
abolished,
asserting:
"I
regard
the
whole
system
as
an
unmixed
evil."
¹⁷

The
worst
damage
which
this
system
did
to
the
Confederacy,
however,
was
that
it
put
Yankee
soldiers
in
a
mood
to be
vengeful.

By
this
time
the
Union
authorities
had
had
a
good
deal
of experience
with
guerillas
and
they
were
getting
very
grim about
it.
Much
of
this
conditioning
had
been
gained
in
states like
Tennessee
and
Missouri,
where
neighbor
was
bitter against
neighbor
and
barn
burnings
and
the
murderous
settlement
of
old
grudges
went
hand
in
hand
with
attempts
to discomfit
the
Yankee
invader,
and
most
Federal
generals
considered
guerillas
as
mere
bushwhackers,
candidates
for
the noose
or
the
firing
squad.
An
exception
was
generally
(though by
no
means
always)
made
in
the
case
of
Mosby's
men,
who were
recognized
as
being
more
or
less
regular
soldiers,
but the
attitude
toward
the
rest
was
summed
up
by
a
Union
general
along
the
upper
Potomac,
who
said:
"I
have
instructed
my command
not
to
bring
any
of
them
to
my
headquarters
except
for
interment."
¹⁸

This
attitude
spread
rapidly
to
the
rank
and
file,
particularly
when
the
guerillas
took
to
killing
any
Union
stragglers they
could
catch.
Overlooking
the
fact
that
lawless
foraging and
looting
by
stragglers
and
bummers
could
easily
provoke angry
reprisals,
the
soldiers
simply
argued
that
if
a
Southerner wanted
to
fight
he
ought
to
be
in
the
Confederate
Army.
If he
was
not
in
the
Army,
but
fought
anyway,
they
considered that
he
was
outside
the
law.
Since
the
guerillas
could
not often
be
captured—they
usually
struck
at
night,
vanished
in the
dark,
and
became
innocent
farmers
before
the
pursuit
got well
organized—the
tendency
was
to
take
it
out
on
the
nearest civilians,
on
the
broad
ground
that
if
they
let
guerillas
operate
in
their
midst
they
would
have
to
take
the
consequences.